This discussion paper deals with the estimation of a random coefficient model. The virtue of this approach is that it considers firm heterogeneity, which conventional SFA models do not. Applying the model to Polish farms, the results indicate that the conventional random and fixed effect models...

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the relationship between social capital and the quality of economic development in Italy. The analysis draws on a dataset collected by the author including about two hundred variables representing different aspects of economic development and...

A cluster analysis task has to identify the grouping trends of data, to decide on the sound clusters as well as to validate somehow the resulted structure. The identification of the grouping tendency existing in a data collection assumes the selection of a framework stated in terms of a...